UK Government Earmarks £50m for Superfast Broadband

UK government is ready with the second wave of funding to speed up the super-fast ‎broadband network across the UK, even as testing broadband services in remote areas on ‎a pilot scale was yet to be commenced. A further £50m has been earmarked for these ‎services, to be made available to local UK authorities, as the government has pledged to ‎make the best super-fast broadband available in Europe by 2015.‎

The idea was to encourage bids from local people to carry out the plans for improving ‎broadband in their local area. Local councils can apply via the Broadband Delivery UK to ‎get the funding support. It is estimated that the funding would benefit a further 800,000 ‎homes from the super-fast broadband connectivity.‎

The UK government was anxious to provide broadband related services to the ‎economically weaker sections of the society, and the National Broadband Map had ‎identified huge gaps that were not provided with these facilities. BT and Virgin Media ‎were not in a position to offer next-generation services to these areas because of the high ‎costs involved.‎

Pilot tests announced in four rural areas – Cumbria, North Yorkshire, Herefordshire and ‎the Highlands and Islands – have been delayed. The idea was to find out measures that ‎could make the proposal commercially viable in rural and backward areas. The total ‎funds earmarked for this project is £530m, and time, obviously, is running short.‎